Baumgartner writes one thing and votes another

House Republicans defending a Trumped-up tariff justification "emergency"

It is common knowledge that the amount of fentanyl coming into the United States from Canada is a tiny 43 pounds (0.2% of the total last year). When Donald Trump declared a national emergency over fentanyl coming from Canada, it seemed like just another of his many dramatic lies and exaggerations to which we are becoming inured. However, it turns out the fentanyl threat from Canada is a pseudo-emergency manufactured for a reason: he needs an “emergency” to justify his free-wheeling tariff threats agains out northern neighbor.

In a video recorded in the Oval Office Trump claimed (bizarrely), “We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That's when we had, we were a tariff country.” In reading about that period it became clear that back then most of the money to fund the federal government came from tariffs, tariffs that were sometimes very high—BUT—tariffs were set (and hotly debated) by Congress, not wielded unilaterally by the President as a weapon. (See “When Exactly was that “Again” in MAGA?” for more detail and links.)

Trump and his enablers justify his supposed authority to threaten our allies with tariffs under the “International Emergency Economic Powers Act” of 1977 during the Carter administration. The IEEPA authorizes the president “to regulate international commerce after declaring a national emergency in response to any unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States.” Interestingly, the “regula[tion] of international commerce” clause has been used to justify tariffs only by Trump.

So, lacking any real emergency (especially in the case of our northern neighbor), Trump had to declare a bogus emergency in order to justify the tariff war which he so fervently believes will usher in an age of prosperity.

Voila! The fictional “fentanyl emergency” provides the legal justification for the Trump’s tariff threats.

How is it that the U.S. House is letting Trump get away with this totally bogus emergency declaration, when it is the U.S. Congress that should be determining tariff policy, especially tariffs of the magnitude that Trump is threatening? Republican House members, including Micheal Baumgartner (R-WA CD5), freshman House member from eastern Washington, are united in supporting Trump’s bogus justification and wish to yield their tariff-setting power to Trump.

Of course, House Republicans would rather that voters not understand Trump’s that they support Trump’s ludicrous “fentanyl emergency” justification for his tariffs—and few news outlets tried to explain how it came about. Here’s the way they’re keep it all under wraps:

A federal law, 50 USC Ch. 34: NATIONAL EMERGENCIES, (§1622. National emergencies, Section c), wisely offers a check on presidential emergency declarations. Since Republicans have a slim majority in the U.S. House they can control what bills come to the floor for a vote. However, anticipating that blockage, those who drafted 50 USC Ch. 34 offered an expedited process that circumvents the majority’s control of the floor. It specifies a “fifteen calendar day” window for various actions leading to a floor vote. Of course, Republicans really don’t want to have to go on record in front of their constituents supporting Trump’s bogus emergencies—so, last Tuesday, they buried this in a procedural measure (see point #19), H.Res.211 around their passage of the Continuing Resolution the following clause:

“Each day for the remainder of the first session of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the National Emergencies Act with respect to a joint resolution terminating a national emergency declared by the President on February 1, 2025.”

Wow. Republicans can bend time! Days will pass between now and the end of 2025, but they “shall not constitute calendar days”. They passed this subterfuge on a 216-214 vote party-line vote (except for one Republican, Thomas Massie of KY). Best of all from a Republican standpoint, bolstered by this vote, Trump can declare any bogus “emergency” he wants for the rest of the year without concern of contradiction by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Democrats are fuming at the legislation, with Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) — members of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade — issuing a joint statement slamming it [this procedural vote].

“Every House Republican who votes for this measure is voting to give Trump expanded powers to raise taxes on American households through tariffs with full knowledge of how he is using those powers, and every Republican will own the economic consequences of that vote,” Beyer and DelBene said in the statement. “It speaks volumes that Republicans are sneaking this provision into a procedural measure hidden from the American people.”

Duplicitously, U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner just penned an op ed in the Spokesman with Edmund O. Schweitzer, chairman of the board of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories in Pullman, in which they decried tariffs because “tariffs are taxes” and “for us in Eastern Washington, tariffs mean trouble.” Yet there Baumgartner was on the floor of the House, voting not to interfere with Trump’s bogus declaration of an “emergency”. Baumgartner writes one thing and votes another.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry